I love history. Our history tells us where we came from. It can tell us who we are, if we’ll take the time to learn it. Shakespeare, another one of my loves, wrote: “All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players…” I think of history as a kind of stage. It’s like a continuum of theaters. Most have been small with audiences of only a few people. Others have been grand and commanded the attention of millions. Where we are today is connected to those performances.
Some forces and movements began hundreds, and some thousands, of years ago. Some still move people today. It reminds me of the way a wave passes through water. Individual water molecules aren’t moved along like they are in a current. They remain where they are but are raised and lowered as the force of the wave passes through them. In a similar way, forces of history pass through individuals as they move through time. To understand those forces it’s useful to know when and where they began.
Some say that history repeats itself. While that may not be technically true, it certainly seems true that similar trends repeat themselves in history. Human nature has remained unchanged throughout human history and that gives us a common ground on which to understand some of the repetitive patterns in it. That’s the main reason why the works of Shakespeare and others are intelligible to us. We understand the motivations and actions of past human beings when we understand their circumstances. I am reminded of an incident wherein President Harry S. Truman was reported to have been reading Plutarchs’ ‘Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans’. When asked why he was reading it, his reply was that he wanted to know what was going on in Washington!
The idea that history repeats itself is so common some cultures employ divination methods that are based on the probability of pattern repetition. The Chinese, for example, use the I-Ching. It employs the idea is that patterns tend to repeat or replay in nature and knowing those patterns can help to predict the future based on where one is in a current pattern. While I believe occult divination methods are primarily baseless superstition, there is some logic in them or, at least, in this particular method.
It is an historical phenomenon that when times become very chaotic for people they tend to turn back to their traditional values and faith. In times of war or natural disaster they are comforted by the beliefs they were raised with. This seems to happen in cycles as well. Over years people gradually leave their traditional faiths for more and more freedoms until their societies become so chaotic that a trend usually occurs that causes more and more people to turn back to their historical faith. I believe we are on the verge of this particular pattern repeating itself.
American and European values have become such a free-for-all that it has left a great many people without any purpose or direction in life. The backlash may very well be a return to the traditional faiths of our ancestors.
At the same time the Arab-Muslim world is in a state of upheaval. They are struggling with where they fit into the modern world. In Iraq and Afghanistan especially, I believe there will be a backlash following the wars wherein people turn back to their faith. Ironically, what the war will produce is more radical Muslims and more hatred of the West than ever before.
For hundreds of years now the philosophy of Islam and the Christian influenced secular philosophy of the West have been at odds with each other. They have ‘pushed’ at each other because they are incompatible with each other. Islam is a view of life that is opposed to democratic ideals. That doesn’t mean all individuals who practice Islam, it means the philosophy of Islam itself. The West today is locked in a conflict with Islam. I don’t say ‘radical’ Islam so much as ‘orthodox’ Islam.
What is sure these days is that the world seems a much smaller place than ever before in history. The population has just hit seven billion. There are emerging powers all over the globe. The Chinese are on the ascendancy. The Muslim world is on the ascendancy. The United Europe is growing and consolidating its power.
America, on the other hand, seems on the decline. We have turned over most of our manufacturing capabilities to countries like China. (Who will prove not to be our friend.) We have lost any moral authority because we have thrown out the values that made us great. We are a culture at war with itself.
History teaches that when there is a power vacuum in the world someone will fill it. Another lesson of history is that political leaders tend to use religion to unify people and give them a common purpose. As stated earlier, in the times of greatest uncertainty and confusion people tend to turn to the faith of their forefathers. In the Middle East that means most will turn back to Islam. In Europe, Catholicism is the faith of their fathers. Other areas pf the world will follow suit. The problem is that all these faiths are at odds with each other.
These worldviews compete with the hearts and minds of people searching for meaning in their lives. There is a strong attraction to people who are certain of something. That’s one reason why cults continue to draw so many to their ranks. Cults leaders will undoubtedly begin to multiply. Political leaders will rise and give voice to frustrated populations. Power will coalesce around these leaders because they will tell their people what they want to hear.
Technology too has made the world a much smaller place. There is no longer any place left to go. It has also made the world a far more dangerous place. The weapons of war now include biological and chemical weapons alongside the immense power of modern nuclear weapons. The weapons of war have become vastly more destructive than at any time in history. The thing about weapons is that every weapon that has ever been devised, from throwing rocks to the atomic bomb, has been used in war. The greatest predictor of the future is the past.
All these trends are happening in a world running out of natural resources and workable land. It is a world with a growing population and, human nature has not changed since the beginning of history. All of these trends show we are headed for a conflict the likes of which has never been seen on earth.
We simply cannot go on the way we always have. Something has to change or mankind is doomed to self-destruct. As a Christian, I live with the hope that Christ will return and save mankind from itself. It is the only light I see in a world growing darker every day. We have to turn our hearts back to our Creator....
